To help determine whether or not the federal government’s Medicare program is more cost efficient than non-government (private) health insurance, we’ve compared the administrative costs for both according to five different studies. The results are presented in summary chart form (I. below) and graph form (II. below) with links to the full studies themselves.

Some organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, argue that calculating administrative costs as a % of total expenses misleads people into thinking that Medicare is more efficient than non-government (private) health insurance. They believe that comparing the administrative costs per beneficiary (III. below) more accurately reflects the greater efficiency of private health insurance. Others point out that Medicare treats the elderly exclusively, and since they typically have more health problems than the general population, comparing costs per beneficiary is misleading and therefore percentage comparisons are more reliable.

An international comparison of the US and five other industrialized countries (IV. below) shows that the US spends at least twice as much administrating its health care system as countries with universal health coverage such as Germany and Canada.

Administrative costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office (V. below), "refer to any expenses insurers incur that are not payments for health care services, including the profits retained by private insurers and the taxes paid on those profits."

The total for administrative costs and health care costs shown in each bar graph below equals 100%

Health Care Costs

2000

Medicare

6%

98%

Private Health Insurance

11.4%

88.6%

2005

Medicare

5.8%

94.2%

Private Health Insurance

13.2%

86.8%

[Editors Note:Calculations at the bottom of this page show administrative spending per benificiary. They were included because they were an integral part of the conclusion of the Heritage Foundation report. The other entries on this page did not make such comparisons between total percentages and spending per person.]

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated the following in a Dec. 2008 report titled, "Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals," available at www.cbo.gov:

"[A]dminis­trative costs refer to any expenses insurers incur that are not payments for health care services, including the profits retained by private insurers and the taxes paid on those profits...

Administrative costs can be divided into three categories:

- Marketing costs include expenses for advertising, sales, enrollment processing, customer service, billing, and actuarial and underwriting activities. (Underwrit­ing involves an assessment of an applicant’s health and expected use of health care in order to determine what premium to charge.)